Gang, I Might Make A YouTube Video About Javanese (from The Perspective Of An American Conlanger) Because

Heads up, Seven up!

Thanks from @authorcoledipalo for the tag!

Take these seven lines of dialogue from Part Three:

"She killed her ... in front of us. In front of me." "Izi ... I'm not doing this because you can't, I'm doing this because you can." “When you get back in power, make it so the train is free.” "Too late...you're cooked." “Obviously not! The layers of deception with her go so deep it’s not even funny anymore.” "Do you even know how you feel?" "We're going to get our mother back and beat the shit out of her for lying to us."

Plus seven tags:

@theothersideofthewoods, @oldfashionedidiot, @flurrysahin, @the-letterbox-archives, @eternalwritingstudent, @koinotfish, and @moonsbetween

it's the first draft it doesn't need to be perfect it's the first draft it doesn't need to be perfect it's the first draft it doesn't need to be perfect it's the first draft it doesn't need to be perfect it's the first draft it doesn't need to be perfect it's the first draft it doesn't need to be perfect it's the first draft it

in retrospect the funniest of the reasons I was misdiagnosed as allistic (as in a guy who claimed to be a doctor specifically told my parents I'm not autistic I'm just weird) as a kid was that one of the main diagnostic things they use is seeing if you misinterpret figures of speech, and apparently they weren't prepared for the possibility of a child with a linguistics special interest giving them an infodump on the history and nuance of the idioms they're asking about

Day 14 (20 in base 7) of writing my novel again

Woohoo! I'm at two weeks of consistent progress!

I expanded Part Two to around 7,500 words today, which makes the whole thing around the 19,000 word count. I don't know what my original estimates for this thing were, but my newest estimates for how long this thing will be are between 70,000 and 100,000, since I'm probably only 20% of the way through and I'm already almost breaking 20,000. Definitely not a bad thing, it's just how the story I'm trying to tell is coming out.

Tomorrow will be national Odapir day (I decree it!) because I need to flesh the language and culture out. While there's already a substantial mass to work with, it's not ready to be translating anything, and I need translations.

That's all for now. Stay tuned!

Day 20 (26 in base 7) of rewriting my novel.

I did a lot of planning today, but I didn’t add any words to the novel today.

Also, a new character just kinda… popped out of nowhere yesterday while I was writing?

Reblogging to save this for later.

OC questionnaire tag

Thanks for the tag, @the-golden-comet!

My questions:

1. What is the most important meal of the day?

2. What drives you to succeed?

3. Have you ever gambled? (Not just with money)

Guess I’ll do Chia/Ailan. Here goes!

What is the most important meal of the day?

You’re taught in the Maidenhood to never skip a meal, but I would say Breakfast. It’s important to feed your body, especially after a night’s rest. As my mentor used to say, “take care of your body, and it will take care of you.”

What drives you to succeed?

Heh. In some ways, guilt, I suppose. I don’t need to work; I’ve got enough funds to live the rest of my life in luxury and then some. But some lives aren’t to be ignored, and… Marie, she isn’t-wasn’t- fit for the life of a Glass Maiden. That doesn’t change the fact that I killed her parents, which is why I quit. So doing Barwork, being a server… small price to pay to make sure she’s safe.

Have you ever gambled?

Oh certainly. With money, with lives: my own and others. I cheated every time, of course. What? You don’t win Gambles because you play fair.

Your questions:

1) Are you a night owl or a morning lark

2)what is/would be your favorite kind of cheese

3) whats your favorite letter?

Tagging: @agirlandherquill @the-letterbox-archives @the-ellia-west @ominous-feychild+open tag, of course

Don't leave students in red states behind

This week, a teacher at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Meridian, Idaho was reprimanded by the West Ada school district for having a sign up in her classroom reading "Everyone is welcome here" she refused to take it down and went to the media with her story. The district responded saying everyone has to be a team player and the poster was discriminatory and distracting.

So students walked out.

This afternoon, a student-led walkout protest happened at the West Ada district office. Children are the future. Just because Idaho is a red state does not mean that rights violations and whitewashing are normal or par-for-the-corse.

this is not normal.

read the story here

hmm another cool Tagalog thing that isn't in modern English (to the extent of my knowledge, that is) - and which can be found in other languages too! - are gender neutral pronouns and words for people. this wasn't something I noticed until I started reading more and more English books, because I realized that a lot of these words have no direct equivalent in English.

the word siya, meaning he/she, singular. I wouldn't say it's an equivalent to the English gender neutral "them" as it is purely used as a singular pronoun.

anak, meaning son/daughter. For me the English translation "child" is not 100% accurate, since child could also mean a random kid that isn't your son and daughter, while anak quite literally means child as in offspring.

a few more familial terms like pamangkin (nephew/niece), bienan (parent-in-law), manugang (child-in-law).

and then there are ones like kapatid, sibling, and asawa, spouse, but I think these are more often used in casual conversation compared to their English equivalents.

and then we have the aspects of the language that were directly influenced by Spanish, so we have some gendered words in usage, hence the terms Filipino/Filipina. however, in these instances, people generally aren't very strict on using the "correct" gendered word when talking casually. really threw me for a loop when I started learning romance languages that had gendered nouns, lol. thank you for listening to my random rambling~

Day 24 (33 in base 7) of re-writing my novel

Since google docs (my primary writing tool, accompanied by my note-taking journal) doesn't quite accurately describe my true word count, today I will celebrate 30,000 words like I promised yesterday, because it's close enough to be within a 5% error.

I wrote more today, including getting deep in the weeds with the relationship between Izi, Hero of Cognition, and Dolgof, the Hero of Life. Without sharing very many spoilers, they're in very similar situations. Or, have been.

Izi, the current Emperor of Zeneste, has never been in a position of power before, nor has he been a proper leader. Dolgof had been in his position during the drafting of the Constitution of Zeneste, but she never became a good leader.

I like this dynamic between them. Not only does Izi have someone to discuss what being a leader means with, he also has someone to juxtapose himself against, however unhealthy that may be.